OT - but is it just spoonfeeding that is not the biological standard? Throughout my studies I have encountered women from a wide variety of cultural settings (either personally or through research) who fed their babies solid type foods either with spoons or other similar implements, many who have fed using their (the mother's) fingers (rolling food and placing it in baby's mouth etc), using shallow bowls, even chopsticks, etc etc. It's fairly universal, isn't it?

Because I really do believe that there is no need to spoon feed and it CAN be harmful. I believe that it is *better* for babies to self feed. I believe that self feeding is the biological standard.

-Angela

I totally agree w/ you on this one. Children eat to satisfy their hunger. PERIOD. Even when nursing - babies become very skilled at different types of sucking (i.e. to eat or for comfort). Why take away that self-regulation of hunger?

Most of us adults eat for a variety of reasons besides hunger (boredom, loneliness, celebration, depression, on and on) But children are born eating when they are hungry and stopping when they are full.

I occasionally give my son bites from my plate on a fork or spoon, but generally he self-feeds. I don't worry about how much he gets in his mouth vs. on the floor because I know my milk is still the most important part of his diet.

I realize everyone has different experiences here - but I would suggest giving self-feeding a try for anyone who hasn't yet. You may be suprised at how well it goes!

Absolutely. It is very normal to use whatever utensils the family uses. For tastes and bites. The difference is the "gerber" idea of spoon feeding whole ounces of liquid food into infants not ready for solids.

Absolutely. It is very normal to use whatever utensils the family uses. For tastes and bites. The difference is the "gerber" idea of spoon feeding whole ounces of liquid food into infants not ready for solids.

-Angela

OK, agreeance on the Gerber idea (which would be the Heinz idea down here lol)

But I have definetely seen much more than 'tastes and bites' going on. For total clarification, my intention here is not trying to prove anyone wrong. I'm just very interested in this idea of a 'biological standard', the establishment of one baseline 'biological standard' and then taking into account millenia of transposed cultural practices, and somehow weeding some out and not others.

OT - but is it just spoonfeeding that is not the biological standard? Throughout my studies I have encountered women from a wide variety of cultural settings (either personally or through research) who fed their babies solid type foods either with spoons or other similar implements, many who have fed using their (the mother's) fingers (rolling food and placing it in baby's mouth etc), using shallow bowls, even chopsticks, etc etc. It's fairly universal, isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by little-g

OK, agreeance on the Gerber idea (which would be the Heinz idea down here lol)

But I have definetely seen much more than 'tastes and bites' going on. For total clarification, my intention here is not trying to prove anyone wrong. I'm just very interested in this idea of a 'biological standard', the establishment of one baseline 'biological standard' and then taking into account millenia of transposed cultural practices, and somehow weeding some out and not others.

To answer the OP: No, I don't believe that is normal for a 17-month old to only want to nurse 1x/day unless there is pregnancy or something else going on which changed the taste and lowered milk supply. Otherwise, I think the nursing less often is a result of cycle, most solids means less nursing means less milk supply means less desire to nurse of the baby, leading to more solids, even lower milk suppply, etc.

With regards to spoon-feeding: I do believe it can definitely affect nursing. It seems pretty obvious that a baby who is spoon-fed will get MORE food in their tummies than one that is self-fed. Obviously, mom is more adept with the spoon than baby is. I started giving my children mushy foods like applesauce or avocado between 8-10 months, but I would just mush it up on on the tray and let them stick their fingers in, and lick some off their fingers. Yes, it was quite the messy endeavour. We either stripped them down to diaper only or used full-body bib and lots of clean-up afterwards. However, that satisfied their "desire" to eat food and be part of the family and kept them happy during dinner. I am also pretty confident they actually ate less food that way, and hence still nursed a lot, since they didn't actually start eating *significant* amounts of food until 14/15 months and it was 20/21 months before they actually HAD to eat at regulal intervals (before that they could easily skip lunch or dinner and just nurse and be totally fine).

Even if a mother does follow all her babies cues and stops as soon as baby gives any indication, I think the baby will still GET more solids than if they eat themselves. Babies and toddlers feeding themselves are so distractible, and not as adept at eating and hence lose interest faster and just naturally won't fill up as much (because it would take a baby much longer to feed itself the amount of food mom gives it on a spoon, and most children would lost interest before then.)

As far as a biological standard goes....well I think it is only in western, modern societies where people even have the "luxery" of feeding babies solids because we have such ample food supply. I mean if food is scarce and precious, why would you waste food on a baby, when that baby can be breastfeed? I think throughout most of history, people probably didn't give babies food until they really NEEDED it (closer to 1.5 years), since they just coudln't waste precious food when the baby would thrive on breastmilk.

As far as a biological standard goes....well I think it is only in western, modern societies where people even have the "luxery" of feeding babies solids because we have such ample food supply. I mean if food is scarce and precious, why would you waste food on a baby, when that baby can be breastfeed? I think throughout most of history, people probably didn't give babies food until they really NEEDED it (closer to 1.5 years), since they just coudln't waste precious food when the baby would thrive on breastmilk.

I agree, that's totally what you would expect, but interestingly enough, many non-industrialised peoples in Africa, south-east Asia, and Australasia introduce solids even earlier that 6 months, and exclusive breastfeeding is not practised as widely as you would imagine. There has been quite a lot of research on this area to determine why it is that the the standard WHO recommendations are not traditionally practised by as many women around the world as you might expect would innately and culturally exclusively b/feed and delay solids etc.

I think it may be easy to assume that these breastfeeding patterns (or introduction of solids) belong exclusively to 'mainstream', western women who may or may not be 'out of touch' with their babies, but that is actually far from the reality.

OK - Im totally OT now so I'll leave it there - the anthropogist in me just finds this fascinating!!

It's not "developmentally appropriate" for a child to be spoonfed. Apparently some people believe a child cannot tell you when they have had enough when you spoonfeed them, thus in turn leading to obese, Mickey D loving 10 yr olds with juvenile diabetes later in life.

juvenile diabetes has nothing to do with diet, it's an autoimmune disease I hate comments like this as a mother of a son with type 1, he never had Mickey D's and was underweight

Isn't that what one generally does when there is food by their mouths and they are hungry?

Hee-hee, I have a cute story. I decided to test this last night with my DD who is just over 12 months and a self feeder. She's only used a spoon on her own (i.e. I've never fed her anything off of a spoon) and that has only been a couple times so far, just to get her used to having a spoon around.

So, last night at dinner, I put some food on a spoon after she had begun eating (and thus was very hungry). Right when the spoon got to her mouth, she'd close her lips tight and try to take the food OFF of the spoon, with her fingers. This happened every time I tried it. Yet, she'd eat the food if I allowed her to take it off of the spoon, or if I let her hold the spoon.

It was totally cute. So, it would seem that not all kids open their mouths if you put food by them and they are hungry! Mine obviously has a preference for the delivery method.

Tofie ~ mama to DD1, DD2 and Pookie v3 debuting December 2011Oh my God....women are the COWS of PEOPLE!! --Reese, Malcolm in the Middle